As we approach the holidays, I would like to take this opportunity to wish the university’s many friends and supporters a joyous holiday season and new year.

With your help, CSUN has made tremendous strides this past calendar year. We have continued to raise the visibility and reputation of the university. CSUN shines as brightly as ever and I have been inspired by the increased pride and excitement I see every day for CSUN’s achievements and its mission of serving students and the community.

In 2013, I was honored to be formally invested as CSUN’s fifth president, which was an opportunity to bring attention to the university and its work in service to the region; we graduated nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students at our commencement exercises in May; we began rolling out our new “CSUN Shine” campaign; new planning priorities were introduced, which will guide and focus the university’s work in the coming years; and the collective energies and ideas of our campus community were harnessed through a variety of efforts and initiatives, like our sustainability efforts. Finally, and more importantly, we continue to experience gains in student persistence, with the most recent one-year continuation rate of our first time freshmen entrants coming in at 78 percent, a higher persistence rate than any the campus has seen since before the year 2000. Many of you contributed in a meaningful way to these and other outstanding efforts and I am grateful for your continued support for the campus, which in turn benefit our students and community. I am confident that our forward momentum will continue in 2014.

Again, best wishes for a restful holiday season. Please enjoy the holiday video above, which features a special performance by student group Acasola.